REGENSBURG (David Hein's Eye on the Future) - It's that time of year again - the Turkish Airlines Euroleague Final Four, and with it the finals of the Nike International Junior Tournament (NIJT). The NIJT is widely considered the top youth club competition in the world, a U18 spectacle attracting the best players from Europe.

More and more of the best players in European basketball can claim a stake in the now 12-year history of the event. And the list continues to grow longer and longer every spring.

This week promises to be a thrilling NIJT in Milan with eight teams shooting for a chance to play Sunday afternoon at the Euroleague host venue Mediolanum Forum just hours before some of their very role models challenge for the Euroleague trophy.

Statistically-speaking, a Spanish team has the best chance of winning the 2014 title given that three of the eight teams are from the Iberian peninsula. But Spanish teams haven't fared that well with defending champions Joventut Badalona the only Spanish team to hoist the trophy. And Serbian club FMP are the last team to repeat their NIJT title in 2008 and 2009.

Joventut and Serbian side Crvena Zvezda Telekom Belgrade are the only two teams returning from last spring's spectacle in London.

Joventut - a recipient of one of the four wild cards - have four players back from the title-winning team with only Sergi Costa and Marc Bauza as real contributors and a total of seven underclass 1997-born players.

Crvena Zvezda are making their fourth straight appearance and will be hoping to finally reach their first final after winning the Belgrade qualifying tournament for the fourth straight time.

The only other team in Milan that has won the NIJT in the past is two-time winners Zalgiris Kaunas. The Lithuanians captured the trophy in the inaugural NIJT in 2003 as well as 2007. Zalgiris also reached the final in 2005, 2006 and 2011. A third crown would pull Zalgiris - who qualified by winning the precursor in Kaunas - even with the record champions CSKA Moscow, who won back-to-back-to-back in 2003, 2004 and 2005.

The other two qualifying tournament winners are both Spanish clubs with Cajasol Seville having won the Rome NIJT and Real Madrid the tournament in L'Hospitalet.

Cajasol return to the finals for the first time since 2010 and took advantage of playing in Rome after having lost in the stacked L'Hospitalet tournament, which features mainly teams from Spain.

The winner of this winter's L'Hospitalet was Real Madrid. Despite the club's storied background, they qualified for the finals for the first time - having played at the 2008 NIJT as Euroleague Final Four hosts.

This year's hosts are Armani Junior Milan, who are making their finals debut thanks to a wild card. The Italians did take third place at the Rome NIJT and will have the home fans rooting them on. They also will feature a team made up of the best young Italian players - not necessarily all of them being with the Milan club.

Another wild card went to Turkish club Fenerbahce Istanbul, who took fifth place at the L'Hospitalet qualifiers. The 2012 finalists hope to become the first Turkish team to win the NIJT crown.

Rounding out the field is the fourth wild card recipient, Team Brazil, which replaces Team China as the sole team from outside of Europe. The Chinese had played at the last three NIJT finals.

The Brazilians arrive with a team that knows each other very well, with most of them having played the last two summers together at the U15 and U17 South American qualifiers. And the team will use the NIJT as a warm-up for the FIBA Americas U18 Championship in June with the event in Colorado Springs serving as the qualifier for the 2015 FIBA U19 World Championship.

That's a basic rundown of the teams playing in Milan this week. Next week, we'll take a look at who really impressed observers and who may not have played so well.

Enjoy the games.

David Hein

FIBA

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